A revived and bi-partisan supported Wi-Fi Innovation Act has been introduced this week by U.S. Senators and is backed by U.S. House members with a companion bill of their own.The legislation, originally pitched last summer, urges the FCC to test the feasibility of opening up spectrum at the higher end of the 5GHz band (5850-5925) for unlicensed Wi-Fi use. Cable and other tech companies are all for this, while automakers and their partners are opposed, citing possible interference with car safety systems they are becoming more mainstream.MORE: How Not to Get Slammed by the FCC for Wi-Fi BlockingTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security-conscious IT leaders already have a rocky romance with the BYOD trend, and as Valentine’s day approaches it’s emerged that lonely-heart employees could be putting company data up for grabs by using dating apps.More than 60 percent of the leading mobile apps available in this category are potentially vulnerable to a variety of cyberattacks, an IBM Security study found. Besides putting the user’s personal information at risk, if these apps are on devices also used for work, corporate data could be vulnerable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon unquestionably is the best wireless carrier, according to a comprehensive nationwide study of the service provided by the top four U.S. wireless providers during the second half of 2014.
That doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for you. But it's a good starting point to help you choose the right wireless carrier, with a little hand-holding.
That’s because the national study, released Tuesday by RootMetrics, doesn’t dive into the specifics for where you live. What it does tell us, however, was which carrier was best in terms of call quality, data download speed, and other metrics. The data is broken down nationally, on a statewide basis, and in tested metro areas.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks, the world listens—even if he’s speaking to a room full of bankers and other finance bigwigs at the annual Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.And he didn’t disappoint. Cook announced that Apple is partnering with First Solar to build an $850 million solar farm in Monterey County, Calif. The 1,300-acre farm will produce enough power for Apple’s new campus, currently under construction, along with the company’s data center, offices, and 52 retail stores in California.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Tim Cook's 2014 pay package dwarfed by new hire Ahrendts' +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s not a shock to learn that Apple is always hard at work on the next big thing. There will always be another iPhone, a lighter MacBook Air, a faster iMac, and new operating systems to run on them. 9to5Mac reported last week that, according to its unnamed sources, iOS 9 would focus not on new features, but rather on cleaning up iOS and making sure all the bells and whistles added in iOS 7 and iOS 8 work like they’re supposed to, every time.Think of it as the Snow Leopard of iOS. When Apple decided to slow the roll of feature creep in OS X 10.6, the result was an OS that didn’t boast hundreds of new features, but turned out to be stable and reliable—and we loved it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The number of thefts and robberies of smartphones, particularly iPhones, is on the fall in New York, London and San Francisco, according to data to be released Wednesday.Law enforcement officials, who have been at the forefront of demands to include a “kill switch” in all smartphones, hailed the news as proof that the technology is working as a deterrent.In San Francisco, overall robberies and thefts dropped 22 percent from 2013 to 2014, but those involving smartphones were down 27 percent. Thefts and robberies of iPhones fell 40 percent. In New York, smartphone theft dropped 16 percent overall with iPhone figures down 25 percent. And London saw smartphone thefts from persons drop 40 percent in a year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Wi-Fi Alliance warned that LTE on unlicensed frequencies could interfere with Wi-Fi and said it plans to collaborate with the 3GPP cellular standards group to help prevent that.Mobile operators are starting to explore the use of the unlicensed 5GHz band for LTE even though many Wi-Fi networks rely on those frequencies. On Tuesday, Ericsson announced it’s testing unlicensed LTE with Qualcomm and that SK Telecom, T-Mobile USA and Verizon are interested in the technology.Most countries set aside large portions of the 5GHz band for use without a license, and Wi-Fi has become a major user of that spectrum. Mobile operators are allowed to use the band even though they have their own licensed frequencies, but LTE wasn’t developed to coexist with other networks in that kind of environment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At the close of trading on Tuesday, shares of Apple rested at $122.02 a share. Not only did the closing price represent an all-time stock high for the company, it also gave Apple a market cap of $710.74 billion. As a result, Apple is now the first U.S. company to close out the trading day with a market cap over $700 billion.Highlighting the financial behemoth that is Apple, here's how Apple's own market cap stacks up against some other notable tech heavyweights: Amazon has a market cap of $172 billion, Google has a market cap of $358 billion, while Microsoft has a market cap of $346 billion.In a broad sense, Tim Cook clearly knows what he's doing. Taking a closer look at Apple's stock price, however, one can't help but mention Apple's capital return program. When Apple began issuing dividends and engaging in stock buybacks, the company's share price saw an immediate boost. For starters, Apple as a dividend stock instantly became more appealing to large funds. More specifically, a number of large mutual funds are governed by rules which only allow them to invest in dividend paying stocks. Second, Apple's stock buyback program helps Continue reading
It's becoming the biggest question in wearable computing – will the future of smartwatches be determined by tech companies making watches or by watchmakers adding technology?Last week, Swiss watch giant Swatch revealed that it's planning to release its own smartwatch within the next few months. Known for cheap, colorful designs, Swatch is hardly a high-end luxury brand, though it owns a few of those (including Tissot, which has some smart-ish watches in its line).According to what Swatch CEO Nick Hayek said to Bloomberg, the device will communicate via NFC and won't have to be charged (most likely powered by a replaceable watch battery). It will also support mobile payments and work with Windows and Android smartphones (no word on iOS).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the hunt for ways to improve coverage and increase cellular speeds, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile in the U.S., and SK Telecom of South Korea, are considering using LTE over 5GHz, which today is used by Wi-Fi networks.The operators have all taken part in tests conducted by telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson in Canada and Sweden, Ericsson said on Tuesday. The underlying technology is still under development and hasn’t been standardized, but Ericsson is able to reach 450Mbps while at the same time playing nice with Wi-Fi devices in its labs.Of the three operators, T-Mobile in the U.S. has been most vocal in its support for the technology. It increases peak and average data speeds to smartphones and other devices with reduced packet latencies, CTO Neville Ray said in a blog post last month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s iPhones and iPads are still the most-used mobile devices in the enterprise, even as the market expands at high speed, according to a Citrix mobile analytics report released this morning.
The study found that the total number of enterprise mobile devices in use rose by 72% over the course of the past year. A little less than two out of three of every business-focused mobile device runs iOS. Apple’s numbers are highest in Asia and the Americas, at 67% each, and slightly lower in Europe and the Middle East, at 57%.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD:Microsoft CEO Nadella joins Ballmer and Gates in making silly predictions + 18 ways to get the most out of Android 5.0 +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here